What­sApp’s ‘mis­use’ cam­paign

FAC­ING flak for the mis­use of its plat­form, What­sApp on Mon­day launched its first-ever TV cam­paign in In­dia, as part of its ef­forts to ad­dress the chal­lenge of mis­in­for­ma­tion and per­ni­cious ru­mours.

The pop­u­lar mes­sag­ing plat­form ear­lier launched two phases of a ra­dio cam­paign to cre­ate aware­ness among users.

The first phase of the cam­paign kicked off on Au­gust 29, with ads across 46 ra­dio sta­tions of the All In­dia Ra­dio (Air) in states like Bi­har, Jhark­hand, Mad­hya Pradesh, Ch­hat­tis­garh, Ra­jasthan and Ut­tar Pradesh.

The sec­ond phase started on Septem­ber 5, with ra­dio ads across 83 Air ra­dio sta­tions.

What­sApp said it worked closely with film-maker Shir­sha Guha Thakurta to de­velop three 60-sec­ond films, that each con­veyed real sce­nar­ios about danger­ous ru­mours that could spread among users.

The films would be avail­able on TV, Face­book and YouTube, in nine lan­guages, the Face­book-owned plat­form said, adding that it would build on this ef­fort to pre­pare for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Meet­ing What­sApp cheif ex­ec­u­tive Chris Daniels in Au­gust, Union IT Min­is­ter Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the plat­form must com­ply with the law and take “suit­able” steps to pre­vent its mis­use. | IANS